professor ruth ben-ghiat, welcome back to democracy now! you start off meloni has declared victory. talk about her and her party, what they represent. >> meloni is somebody who was a hard-core neofascist, who was at 15 she joined the party that was founded right after benito mussolini's original party was banned in this become the fourth largest party, neofascist party called the italian social movement. she was not only a militant, she became the head of the student organization. the flame -- if you look at the logo of her party called others in italy today, which was founded in 2012, she insisted on keeping a tricolor flame under the logo. that is the flame that is the symbol of the original neofascist party. over the years, many people have told her to get rid of that flame but she won't. this tells us a lot about her loyalty. and she really sees her party is carrying the heritage of fascism into today, so much so a party elder said a few days ago, we are all -- amy: let me go to a clip of giorgia meloni as a teenager, describing her sup

ruth ben-ghiat is professor of history and italian studies, author of the book strongmen: mussolini thedemocracy and autocracy in her podcast. ruth, italian politics, particularly nato neo-fascism is your work, your academic work. when people, you know, people on the right will say, you liberals, you call everything fascist, anything you don't like, any conservative, fascists. you're just sort of slandering this new conservative faction in italy. what do you say to that? >> yeah, well, she is calling herself a conservative, and this is just to cover up. this is somebody who was a hard-core neo-fascist militant, from when she was 15, she became the leader of a neo-fascist party, the same party that was founded right after mussolini's death, just carry on fascism and in a post war. she became the leader of the organization. and the fact that, if you look at the parties logo, it has a dry colourfully minute, and that's not just about patriotism and the colors of the flag, she insisted that flame stay in the logo, because it's the flame that was in the original neo-fascist party and one. so

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. >> professor of history at new york university, ruth ben-ghiat, thanks for coming on this morning. we want to turn to iran where, for the independent night in a row, protesters, many of them women, have been clashing with state forces in nearly 100 cities. ali arouzi joins was the latest. what can you tell us? >> reporter: good morning, mika. well, the anger and outrage in iran is still palpable across the country as protests continue to grow unfortunately so that the death toll officially means 41 people have been killed since unrest began. norway-based iran human rights group say at least 57 people have died but say internet blackouts are making it difficult to confirm fatalities. extraordinary scenes in iran where protesters have taken to the streets for ten consecutive nights in defiance of an unforgiving crackdown. threats and internet blackouts and severe warnings from the country's leaders. iran's president telling authorities they must deal decisively with those who oppose the country's security and tranquility. the protests sparked by the death of 22-year-old mahsa amina.